Black and White
by Grey Distortion
Summary: Charlotte is forced into the world of magic with no clue of how to get back. But will her presence disrupt fate or will she just end up with an early death? TR/OC
1. Chapter 1: Birthday

AN: Hello there, just your random author popping up for a quick note. I have never written a HP fanfiction before and to be honest, my memory on the series is a little (or very) rusty, so if something I write isn't in par with what the books say, just give me a quick heads up and I'll try to sort it out.

Oh, and I'll be updating _VERY_ randomly. And I fully appreciate constructive criticism.

Sorry if this chapter is short, its 4.30 in the morning and I kind of want to sleep.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own characters.

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"**The probability of a certain set of circumstances coming together in a meaningful (or tragic) way is so low that it simply cannot be considered a mere coincidence."****  
****―****V.C. King**

Chapter One: Birthdays

_RRRRIIIIPPPPP_

Charlotte watched patiently as she sat cross-legged on the floor, watching her blonde haired friend slowly pull apart the blue wrapping paper.

"Sophie, you're going to love it," she said with a smile as her friend raised an eyebrow.

From the moment Sophie had mentioned birthdays many weeks ago; she had instantly knew what to get her. Charlotte, despite being a procrastinator of the extreme sort or as many people would call it just plain laziness, had planned and ordered the gift, waiting in anticipation for this day to finally arrive. The gift itself was rather expensive, but nevertheless the price tag didn't bother her, after all, she had been best friends with Sophie for as long as she could remember.

As the last pieces of the paper was discarded and dumped on the floor, Sophie froze, her eyes taking in all the fine details of the fancy glass box that was resting on her palms. She opened her mouth to speak, but seemed temporarily unable to make any coherent words, let alone sentences. Charlotte smirked, before surveying the room in hopes that there would be a camera conveniently placed around, so that she could have blackmail material that could be used later. Unfortunately there wasn't one in plain sight.

"Charlotte Foster," her eyes snapped up to see Sophie looking stunned, "Is this...did you buy me a time turner?"

She grinned and cocked her head slightly, "Maybe...why, don't you want it or something?"

Before Charlotte could react, Sophie flung across the bedroom and landed on her, resulting to them both on the floor and Charlotte suffering from back pain. The instant that they both looked at each in the eyes, they started to laugh loudly, rocking back and forth until their sides were sore. After a while, they both got up, getting bored of lying on the uncomfortable floor.

Charlotte winced as the muscles on her back groaned from the being crushed by Sophie. She ignored it and glanced at her friend who was currently still in awe of her new gift, twirling the petite hourglass around gently with her fingertips.

"So are you actually going wear it, or do you plan on gawking at it all day?" Charlotte asked jokingly, still smiling as she crossed her arms.

Sophie rolled her eyes, "I would but I'm worried about it breaking," she admitted.

Charlotte merely shrugged her shoulders, "Well if you don't wear it than I will. It cost a bloody lot you know."

Her friend pouted and shielded the necklace with her hands, "It's _my precious_."

Charlotte chuckled, "Someone is a little possessive today," amusement clearly evident in her voice.

"It's my sixteenth birthday so I'm allowed to be selfish," she rubbed in, knowing that it bugged Charlotte to no end that she was younger, "And its Harry Potter stuff."

"I'm pretty sure that you got enough Harry Potter merchandise as it is already today," Charlotte's olive green eyes flickering over at the pile of never-ending gifts that sat on the floor, "is it me or does the pile get bigger every year?"

Unlike Sophie, who was the only child and was extensively spoilt by her parents, Charlotte had grown up with younger brother, called Jack, and had learned over the years about sharing and being humble. Despite the small income that the family had lived on from her father, she was happy with what she had gotten.

However, at the age of twelve, her parents announced that they were getting a divorce and soon after, her father had got up and left the house. Nobody had seen him since. Charlotte's mother was forced to get a minimum waged job to provide for the family, resulting to birthday and Christmas gifts being something small and simple; like a book. Not that Charlotte minded much; after all it was still better than nothing.

"You can never have enough Harry Potter stuff," Sophie stated as if it was a fact that everyone knew, "it's kind of like chocolate."

"Now that is something I can agree on," she smiled. _Talking about chocolate, I'm really hungry..._

"You know, you really do need to try reading the books sometime. You can borrow mine anytime if you want," Sophie offered kindly, interrupting her thoughts.

"I know, I know," Charlotte put her hands up in mock defeat; "It's on my 'To Read' list. I just never have the time." Despite her laid back response, Charlotte was actually an avid reading. The only problem was that she found it difficult to get into the story if she had taken breaks between reading the chapters, which resulted to the book being tossed aside and forgotten.

Sophie snorted, "You're such a lazy ass. Do you even know what happens in the stories?"

Charlotte ignored the first comment and rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly, "Err, to a certain extent I guess. My memories' a little foggy about what happens in the last four books but I know the main parts." This automatically gained a shocked look from Sophie who opened her mouth to say something but was cut off another voice.

"Sophie, Sweetheart, come down here for a second," shouted a female voice from downstairs.

"I'll be there in a minute mum," she yelled back, before facing Charlotte and shooting her a quick smile, "I'll be back in a second. Don't break anything."

"Damn it, my plans are ruined," Charlotte muttered sarcastically, "Don't worry, I won't. For now anyway."

Sophie dashed out of the room, giving her a squeeze on the shoulder on the way out. Charlotte sighed and studied the big room, resting her eyes on the pile of opened gifts after a while. She smirked mischievously_, well it won't hurt to take a quick look at what the presents_, she thought.

She ran fingers through her chestnut brown locks, before kneeling in front of the pile and examining the door cautiously, wondering if Sophie would burst through any minute and accuse her of being nosey. When she heard her friends footsteps quieten, Charlotte turned back to the gifts. A mirror had caught her eye after being blinded by a ray of light that had bounced from its surface. She lifted it up and lightly trailed her thumb along the outside, taking in the fine details and thinking of the amazing craftsmanship that would have gone into the creation of the hand size mirror.

The frame was made from metal, although Charlotte wasn't able to distinguish what type of metal it was. A canopy of leaves was twisted and intertwined between many different flowers that bordered the mirror, with a fairly large delicate metal butterfly that sat on the top of the frame. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the mirror was expensive. Girly was the first word that popped into her mind much to her distaste. Not that she didn't like it. It was just _very girly_.

All of a sudden an image of a young man reaching out to her appeared on the mirror, startling her. She threw the mirror up in shock, before realising the consequences of breaking it and making an attempt to catch it. Sighing and silently thanking her reflexes for actually working well for once after her success, Charlotte stared at the mirror but found that the image was gone. Instead, there was just her normal reflection peering back at her.

For a minute or so, she continued to glare at the mirror. The image remained the same, so she tilted her head slightly to see if the reflection would do the same, and it did as any other mirror would. She even hesitantly tapped the mirror, touching the cold glass surface, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. Charlotte tried to remember what she had seen in the mirror, however for all the life in her, she couldn't seem to picture the man in her mind. It had happened too fast, as if it never even occurred in the first place.

"Okay. I think I'm losing my mind. And now I'm talking to myself...lovely," she murmured, placing it down after deciding that she had had enough _fun_ for the moment.

Casting her attention away from the mirror, Charlotte noticed the shiny, new illustrated book covers of the Harry Potter series that were sprawled messily on the floor. She had decided that starting to read it now was as good of a time to do so, pushing the any thoughts that involved in mirror and blaming her wild imagination on the previous occurrence.

Charlotte was just about to pick up one of the books when she caught something on the side of her eye. A large hand was emerging from the mirror and had managed to latch on to her leg. The hand yanked her leg quickly, catching her off guard and making Charlotte fall to on her stomach.

Her eyes widened as her mind fell into panic mode. She desperately tried to reach out for anything to grab and anchor her down, but found nothing that was heavy enough. Instead her hands tried to grip onto the carpet, but it did little to help.

"H-help! Sophie! Help me, somebody, PLEASE!" Charlotte screamed. She heard loud footsteps coming from down stairs, but she knew at this rate, she would be dragged in. She could feel the sweat forming on her hands from the fear.

Kicking the arm with her free leg did nothing if hinder the pull for a few seconds, but the hand only clutched harder instead, cutting off all of her blood circulation and making Charlotte yelp out loud in pain.

"No, no! LET ME GO YOU FUC-"but she was too late. Before she could even finish the sentence, her body had been pulled through the mirror.

She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the pain of her body hitting a hard surface, but felt none. Eventually, she decided to open her eyelids and saw that she was surrounded by nothing but darkness. She wasn't even sure what she lying/hovering on. Pushing herself up, Charlotte blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the light that was being emitted from a small orb of light, which was the only light source in the area. What surprised her was that it was floating in midair, hovering next to a figure which was eyeing her.

Charlotte's throat was very dry. Furthermore, her breathing had grown ragged and her muscles that were all over her body were sore from falling on the ground back in Sophie's bedroom. She stared wide eyed at the dark haired stranger that was standing directly opposite to her, his calculating eyes never leaving her face. Luckily for Charlotte, there was enough light to make out what he roughly looked like, however he was standing from quite a fair distance away from her so she couldn't see all his features.

He was roughly around her age, if not only a few years older, and was wearing a long black cloak that completely covered his body from his shoulders down, making it impossible to see his clothes. Charlotte suddenly remembered what her psychology teacher had taught her a long time ago, telling her that a person's clothes told a story about them, their personality and where they were from, however she could not read this stranger at all.

He ran his long fingers through his black hair (his mannerisms seemed familiar to her although she couldn't put her finger on why this was), contemplating on what to say to her, before dropping his arm down to his side.

"Hello," his deep voice was cautious yet soothing at the same time, as if speaking to a frightened animal, "I suspect you have a few questions."

"Who are you?" she asked nervously, as she tried desperately to calm herself and her heartbeat that pounded on her chest, as if it was burst through. In all honesty, she was terrified. Charlotte was more scared of what was happening to her now, than she had been her whole life. Yet for some unusual reason, she wasn't scared of him, instead his presence made her feel a little at ease.

He didn't answer immediately, but when he did, he spoke rather slowly "Who I am is not important at this moment. You're wondering where you are, aren't you?" Under normal circumstances, Charlotte would have hounded him about to get her question properly answered, but her mind was in chaos so she just nodded instead. "We are both currently residing in the void of space between two different dimensions, one of which you came from and the other being where you will be going to shortly," he stated.

She gasped, "Wait, so I'm not going back home? And what do you mean different dimensions?" Her words were coming out in a rush as the pitch of her voice grew higher with each word that she spoke. Her hands balled her hands into fists whilst she gritted her teeth. Charlotte could feel anger bubbling from the pit of her stomach, something that very rarely happened. "I want to go back," she spat through her teeth as her shoulders shook slightly.

The stranger opened his mouth, but closed it again. "I'm afraid I can't do that," he announced calmly after a while.

"What. Do. You. MEAN?" she growled.

The young man looked tired, "Exactly what I said before. I can't."

Charlotte was in hysterics, "Why are you doing this to me?!"

Silence loomed over them for a while and with every second passing, Charlotte grew more and more impatient and tense. "I was told to," he confessed, pinching the bridge of his nose almost like he was trying to compose himself.

"By WHO?" she immediately snapped.

This time, instead of answering, the man pulled out something from his baggy sleeve; a dark wooden stick. He quickly pointed the stick at her and called out "Petrificus Totalus," before letting his arm fall down his side, still holding the stick. Charlotte didn't realise what had happened, until she her body was frozen and had locked down, refusing to listen to her commands. She tried to open her mouth to shout at him, but found that she simply couldn't do a thing.

_Magic,_ she thought, _was that magic? Did he just used that a wand to cast a spell on me? Impossible. This has to be a dream, magic doesn't exist._ Yet she knew that it wasn't impossible. She knew that denying it wasn't going to make the situation any better._ Damn it, right now I'm vulnerable. What if he kills me?_

He strode up to Charlotte swiftly, bending down a little so that they were both at eye level. Now closer, she was able to see his face; his skin was extremely pale, as if he was ill, and had muddy green eyes that looked apologetic. He was good looking. Extremely good looking. _Now is NOT the time to be thinking this, _she realised, shaking away the traitorous thoughts.

The stranger then decided to wear a poker face, removing any hints of what he was feeling and what he was planning to do. Her mental state was in pieces, both sides of her brain arguing with each other. Charlotte's logic and common sense was telling her that this man would kill her soon if she did not move, but her emotions and her heart said quite a different story; that this man, whoever he was, did not plan to hurt her and could be trusted.

The dark haired man leaned forward, momentarily breaking her mental conflict, as he pressed his thumb gently on her forehead and his wand on her heart. He started to mutter incarnations under his breath, the words rolled off his tongue quickly and sounded like an unknown foreign language to her. After a few seconds, a blinding white light was starting to surround her, almost as if it was expelling from her very skin.

Her skin felt light and tingled; as if it was being set on fire but instead of the fire being hot it was cool. Soon after a while, she was no longer able to see anything due to the bright light. Charlotte's body was still bounded, leaving her defenceless to do nothing but watch what would happen to her. She started to grow lightheaded, continuing to grow worse the longer she saw the light. Her thoughts were jumbled and confused, and before she knew it, Charlotte passed out.


	2. Chapter 2: New Life

AN: This chapter is kind of depressing. I should mention that Charlotte generally doesn't act like this, but you have to keep in mind that seeing what she has would kind of make you react the same way.

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"**Reality continues to ruin my life."****  
****―****Bill Watterson****,**_**The Complete Calvin and Hobbes**_

Chapter Two: New Life

_Warm... it's warm_, Charlotte thought as she felt the sunlight hit her face. She opened her eyelids and groaned at the throbbing sensation at the back of her head, before pushing herself up so that she was sitting to view her surroundings. A forest. She was in a forest. In the middle of nowhere.

The sunlight had been filtered through the tree leaves, forming shadows all over the muddy floor. Much to her surprise, the forest wasn't particularly dense with trees as they were spread out all over the stretch of ground. The earthy scent of pinecones and wildflowers tickled her nose, and there was little sound to be heard. It was much too quiet; the sweet music of birds or of the wind could not be heard, only the sound of her shallow breathing.

She groaned loudly and dug her face into her sweaty (and now dirty) palms with a million thoughts and questions rushing through her head. Charlotte knew she couldn't just sit around and wait for a knight in shining armour to come and save her, that's not how the real world worked. Then again, with the things she had seen she was no longer sure that she could even distinguish what was real and what wasn't anymore. If it wasn't for the pain that hammered continually at the back of head, Charlotte would have just assumed that she was still in some hellish nightmare.

As she stood up a wave of sickness hit her stomach. Charlotte quickly leaned on a nearby tree for support, as she bent her head down and started to cough violently, her frame shaking as the pain in her chest erupted. Her lungs felt like they were being squeezed tightly, making it difficult for her to breathe and her knees were shaky, as if she would collapse under her weight at any moment. Charlotte pushed herself off the tree and vomited on the floor for a considerable amount of time, not knowing what was wrong with her body, until she had finally stopped. Taking deep breathes; Charlotte tried relax and calm herself but was having a hard time doing so. Cold sweat was trickling down her back and she felt like she could just lie down to sleep forever.

After a moment or so, Charlotte rested her back on the tree and sunk to the ground, before weeping loudly. The emotional turmoil was too much for her to handle. One minute she was at her friend's house, joking and messing around, and the next she was forced into another dimension. She was completely out of her comfort zone. _Be strong, courageous and calm _she thought, chanting the mantra in her head again and again, but her thoughts was suddenly cut off by a blast she heard in the distance.

The sounds were growing louder with every passing second, and it seemed to be getting closer to her direction. At this point voices could now be heard in the mixture of the piercing noises, as well as the sound of electricity flying in the air and objects breaking, echoing throughout the entire forest. Different coloured lights started to flash brighter and moments after, something hurled through the sky and crashed into a tree, smashing the trunk in the process. Charlotte, who was now controlling her breathing and hiding behind the tree, watched curiously and slightly horrified as the thing, which turned out to be a ginger haired man, try to get up.

A cloaked man emerged through the trees, pointing his wand at the figure before him and bellowed "Crucio!" The wounded man crumbled to the ground withering in pain and agony, whilst the cloaked man laughed insanely. He continued to shout "For Grindelwald's army!" terrifying Charlotte even more than what she thought was possible.

Whilst the deranged man was distracted, the other wizard drew his wand and roared, "Avada Kedavra!" green sparks shooting from his wand. Before the cloaked wizard could comprehend what the other man had done, the spell hit him in the chest, causing him let out a blood curdling scream and thus collapsing on the floor. When this had occurred, the forest grew silent again until the ginger wizard crumbled to the ground and started to pant. He rested his back against the broken trunk, his eyes focused on the dead body not far away from him.

Charlotte was once again at a completely loss on words. She had seen what the man could do and what he was capable of, which frightened her. _I'll wait until he leaves, and then I'll get up_, she thought. However, her plan had hit a rather nasty wall when she realised that she didn't know what to do afterwards. What could she do? Walk until she sees a random nearby town and say, "hey, my names Charlotte and I'm from another dimension." She shook her head at the naive thinking, knowing that she would have to be very careful.

All of a sudden, the wind picked up and blew past the area, carrying bits of dirt and leaves on the way. Unfortunately for Charlotte, she was hit in the face by a leaf, tickling her nose. She recognised the feeling on the nose and instantly knew what was going to happen. Quickly pinching her nose, Charlotte tucked her head between her knees and hoped that she wouldn't sneeze, but her body betrayed her. It wasn't just your average normal sneeze, but rather a loud one, immediately causing her to freeze. She silently prayed that the wizard hadn't heard her, but her stomach dropped when she heard a growl.

"Reveal yourself!" demanded the man, his cold voice ripping through air. She debated whether to comply or not by thinking of the pros and cons, after all he did seem fairly injured so he couldn't hurt her that bad (at least to her knowledge), however she decided not to risk it. Charlotte slowly pulled herself up, almost falling back down in the process as her body was still attempting to recover itself from the previous episode. She clutched to the tree for support, her hands feeling the thickness of the trunk. As she slowly stepped out of the shadows and into the light, she put both hands up to show that she wasn't carrying a weapon.

The wizard stared her intensely, making Charlotte flinch under his gaze. She inspected him and saw a lot of blood, cuts and bruises that was covering his body. He was covered in sweat and his clothes were torn, his pale blue eyes were tired and bloodshot. His wand was pointed at her, and more specifically her heart, although she could see his arm shaking.

His expression was guarded, "Are you a spy?"

If the situation had been not so serious and life threatening, Charlotte would have rolled her eyes and retorted something sarcastically, but she knew that she was at no position to do so at the moment. She felt that it was ridiculous for anyone to make such an assumption that she was a spy. Sophie would often refer to her as having two left feet or just born with the inability to walk or run long lengths without tripping on something.

"No," she answered simply, her voice wavering, but his eyes hardened and were still full of suspicion.

"State your name and motives," he commanded harshly.

Charlotte bit the bottom of her lip and thought deeply for a moment. _Should I tell him? Maybe he can help me. But what he doesn't believe me? _She frowned at the thought.

"My name is Charlotte Foster and I don't really have a motive. I was just here when this happened," she answered carefully, watching his face. She decided it was best not tell the whole truth, after all who knew how he would react if she told him the truth.

The man clenched his jaw, his body still rigid. He was sweating profusely, even much so than he did before, and his eyelids were struggling to keep up.

"...are you okay?" she asked softly. Although she knew that it was foolish to show weakness in front of this stranger, Charlotte couldn't help but feel concerned for him. He looked like he was going to drop dead any minute.

The wizard eyed her strangely, but continued to hold his wand up. "That's none of your concern," he muttered through his gritted teeth. He then started to cough, blood spraying all over his hand. His arm started to lower slowly as his eyes becoming less and less focused. _Oh crap, he's not going to-_

Suddenly, he dropped arm to the floor. His chest was no longer rising and his eyes looking blank and lifeless. Charlotte didn't move for a long time, only standing there staring at him shock. When she had finally snapped out of her trance, she stepped closer to him until she was directly in front of him, kneeling down on the damp grass so that they were both at eye level. As she did so, she hesitantly reached her shaky hand out and lightly closed his eyelids.

Charlotte started to take deep breaths, not knowing whether she was hyperventilating or having a panic attack. She bit back her tears and focused all her attention on her breathing, whilst moving her head back and looking at the blue sky.

"WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?!" she screamed, her dry throat feeling sore, "I'VE DONE NOTHING, YOU HEAR ME WORLD?" She bit her lip and dug her finger nails into her arms, not noticing that she had cut through the flesh. Blood started to ooze out from the wound, causing her to release her hold, "nothing..."

Time sat still for a long time, or at least that's it felt like to her. After Charlotte's mental break down, she shuffled away from the dead bodies, the revolting smell of blood made her gag and the sight of them was even worse. Her mind was still in chaos, full of unanswered questions that didn't make sense to her. _Who was the boy from before? Why did I feel like death as soon as I got here? Who were those people and what or who is Grindelwald? Since when did magic exist? Where the hell am I? _Although there was one thing that Charlotte was sure about. She had finally concluded that she was in 'Harry Potter World', or something equivalent to that.

A loud noise cut through the silence of the forest once again, breaking Charlotte from her dreamlike state. However this time she didn't look worried. From the things she had seen in the time since she had been here, Charlotte doubted that anything could surprise her anymore.

Something twisted and turned in the air until it formed into a person, a certain Albus Dumbledore to be exact. _Well I didn't see that one coming, _she thought, slightly relieved that it was someone she had recognised and dropped her guard down, _teleporting must come in handy. Or whatever it's called...I really should have read the books. _

Dumbledore however, was not looking how she was use to seeing him in the films. He looked younger, had a shorter beard and had darker, greyish brown hair. He was wearing a deep navy coloured suit, with a long black overcoat on top as if he had just come out of a meeting or someplace fancy. His blue eyes twinkled with interest as he saw her sat on the floor, but frowned when his eyes scanned the area, stopping on the bloody corpses.

Charlotte felt awkward, unsure of what to do or say. To be honest, she was somewhat expecting him to blame her for murdering them and getting her thrown prison or even worse, possibly killing her. Much to her surprise he did not look at her with accusation in his eyes, but rather concern instead.

"Are you alright, my dear? You seem rather shaken up," he asked softly. He inched a little closer, carefully examining her tear stained face.

"Y-yes," she spluttered, pausing for a moment to compose herself and thinking carefully of her next words, "This is going to sound really weird... but what's today's date?"

He looked curiously at her, "3rd September, 1942. I assume that you are from the future then?"

Shocked, Charlotte dropped her jaw, "1942? And how did you.."

He smiled at her loss of words, "Merely from the question you asked. And your clothes are rather unusual for this time era, wouldn't you agree Miss..."

She quickly recovered, "Foster. Charlotte Foster." Glancing down at her clothes, she realised that he was right. For the first time since coming to this dimension, Charlotte noticed how muddy her clothes were, it was almost as if she had decided to jump in a puddle of mud and rolled around it in.

"Albus Dumbledore," he said kindly, offering his hand out.

Charlotte gladly accepted it and pulled herself up from the ground, letting go and wiping her hands on her jeans. She glanced up at Dumbledore to see that he was still examining her. Although she wasn't sure why he was here, Charlotte knew that she was lucky. From watching the movies with Sophie, she had always liked Dumbledore and would often refer to him as 'that old kick-ass wizard who's kinda like Gandalf.' She knew that if there was anyone she could trust around this place, it would be him hands down.

"Professor, I know this is going to sound strange but I need your help," she pleaded earnestly. Dumbledore raised his eyebrows, but nevertheless he nodded. As Charlotte explained her situation, Dumbledore's eyes surveyed her face to ensure that she was telling the truth. Every once in a while, he would hold up his hand and tell her that there was no need for her to tell him certain parts (like when she mentioned the books), stating that for the good of the time line, something's should not be known unto him. When she had finished he was looking at her wistfully, but he wore a solemn expression on his face. For some time he did not say anything, only stroking his beard pondering deeply.

"I'm afraid I cannot help you with getting back to your world," he said, his brow furrowed. Charlotte opened her mouth to say something, but he shook his head, "Miss Foster, it is not that I do not want to help. Your situation seems very unfortunate and believe me, I plan to help you to best of my abilities, but the wizard that you mentioned before was using a spell that even I have never heard of, or thought such a thing even existed. But I will do my best to look into." She looked dejected, but Dumbledore gave her a reassuring smile, "Do not worry though, in the mean time I know what you can do."

"Really?" she looked hopefully at him. _Is he going to let me stay at Hogwarts?_

"You can stay at Hogwarts for the time being," he simply replied, answering her thoughts, "Will this be your sixth year?" Charlotte inwardly cheered and started to smile, but she faltered.

"No, fifth year, but professor... I can't use magic. Magic doesn't even exist where I come from," she remarked miserably. Pessimistic thoughts started to creep up in her mind but were interrupted by Dumbledore's calm and soothing voice.

"Have you ever tried using magic?" Charlotte shook her head, "then how can you know? Although I'm not an expert at time and space, they may be a possibility that you can utilise magic in this 'Dimension'."_ Hmm, well I suppose that makes sense. It can't hurt to try I guess, _she thought, butanother problem quickly arose.

"I don't have a wand though," she responded.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he spoke, "well I may have a solution to that problem."

He reached into his inner coat pocket and took out a wooden box, with a small white rope tied around it. He passed it over to her as Charlotte gratefully accepted it, studying the box.

The box was made from ebony wood, which she recognised from her Product Design lessons at school, and was fairly old. The sides and edges were worn out, and had intricate wooden carvings on the side of an unusual pattern. It looked like a family heirloom that had been passed through for many generations. Charlotte untied the rope and took the wooden lid off, staring at the wand that was encased in deep red velvet padding.

As her fingertips toughed the wand, she felt a tingly sensation in her stomach as electricity pulsed through her. Grinning widely, she grabbed the wand and firmly grasped it in her hand. The long wand itself wasn't anything special to be honest; it was thicker at the bottom and grew slimmer at the top, with a silver strip near the end of the wand.

"It's made from acacia wood, I believe, although I can't say for sure that I know what the core is. Do you like it?" he asked.

She nodded and smiled, her eyes still fixated on the wand, "It's lovely," she breathed. Tearing her eyes away from the object and looked curiously at Dumbledore, "Do you randomly keep wands in your pockets?" Charlotte joked.

To her surprise, Dumbledore looked away as if he wasn't able to meet her eyes. "Not particularly. This was a special case." She had planned to pry for more details, but was struck with another question; one she realised that she should have asked him in the beginning.

"Professor, I don't mean to be nosy," although she fully did, curiosity was one of the traits that got her in trouble when she got caught, which was rarely, "but why are you here? And when I mean here, I mean this specific location. Shouldn't you be at Hogwarts already?"

This time when his blue eyes met up with hers, they were unreadable, "I was actually on the way back from the ministry, after meeting an old friend. It was merely a coincidence that I came here," he answered with a firm voice that made it impossible for her to ask any further. Charlotte immediately understood why he became the headmaster in the future; he held such authority in his voice that anyone who heard it would obey his demands. Still, Charlotte felt rather troubled though; it seemed to her that everyone she had met so far was not telling her the full truth.

Dumbledore brought out his own wand and pointed it at Charlotte, muttering a spell under his breath. She watched in fascination as her muddy jeans and T-shirt transform into her new clean uniform with black robes. She hastily tucked away the box and wand into her robe pocket before glancing up at him.

"You'll need a story before we arrive, Miss Foster." She nodded as he continued, "You were born in Manchester on.."

"The second of March," she filled in.

"...1927, your father is called Michael Foster, who was a pureblood and an auror. Unfortunately he died in an air raid a year ago. Your mother is called Anna Foster, who is a muggle-born and homeschooled you until your father's death. The reason you joined Hogwarts now is because your mother felt that it was no longer safe you keep you at home. Do you think you can remember that?"

"I guess so." She replied.

"Very good," he smiled, looking rather pleased at her, "and do not worry about catching up with everyone in lessons. I will schedule you tutors every evening until it is not longer necessary." Charlotte moaned and cursed under her breath. Getting tutored meant a lot of effort on her part, and as she had to catch-up 5 years worth of work, she knew that she would constantly be busy.

Dumbledore cleared his throat, gaining her attention whilst holding his hand out, "It would be best if we got going now as I do believe that we are running a little late. If you come and hold my hand, I shall apparate us to Hogwarts and explain to Headmaster Dippet about your stay, sticking to the story of course."

Charlotte walked towards him but stopped halfway, "What do we do about the.. erm.. the bodies?" she asked, shivering involuntary.

He frowned a little, "I'm afraid there isn't anything we can do. In fact, it would be best if we quickly leave in case their companions notice that they're missing and decide to investigate their whereabouts."

Charlotte nodded and grabbed hold of his hand, tensing her muscles as Dumbledore counted down to three. As got to one, she saw the world go black and felt her body being twisted in so many ways that it made her feel queasy.

Disappearing into the air, the forest was once again eerily quiet. Unbeknownst to them, a tall figure had been watching them from a far, hiding behind a large tree and using a disillusionment charm for safe measures. The figure started to cough blood in his hands, before wiping them on his clothes.

He sighed out loud and whispered, "Be safe," to himself, before holding out his wand and casting a spell. A white light shone around the figure before completely enveloping him. As the light started to fade, the figure was no longer in sight, leaving the remains of the corpses to themselves in the forest.


End file.
